Month: June 2013

Nate Cohn downplays the political danger that climate policy poses for Democrats:

[T]he electoral consequences of Obama’s climate policy will probably be overstated. That’s not because climate policy doesn’t have big electoral consequences, but mainly because Democrats have already incurred the huge, if localized costs of pursuing regulations on carbon emissions. The 2009-2010 era fights over Cap and Trade and EPA regulations on new power plants solidified Democrats as the party of the so-called “war on coal,” which resulted in cataclysmic Democratic losses in traditionally Democratic stretches of eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and western Virginia. Maybe memories of the “war on coal” would have faded without the president’s newest climate push, allowing Democrats to recover in 2014. That’s possible, but unlikely. After all, Republicans were already favored to takeover West Virginia’s open Senate seat.

Barro, meanwhile, worries that Republicans will respond to Obama’s climate policies with “maximum political and legal resistance:

[I]t’s not likely to be an effective strategy for shaping policy. Obama is acting under legal authority he already has and a Supreme Court decision that forces the EPA to regulate carbon. Republicans should instead do something they’re not used to: Work with Obama to come up with a better alternative to his plan. Obama has only taken a heavy-handed regulatory approach because that’s what he can do without congressional action; if Republicans would agree to a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system, he’d gladly take that over the plan he laid out [yesterday].

The above screenshot from our unscientific poll shows that 12 percent of male respondents identify as bisexual while 26 percent of female respondents are bi. Of all the straight-identified respondents, 21 percent say they have had a pleasurable sexual experience with someone of the same gender. And 26 percent of respondents do not believe that bisexuality is a sexual identity of its own. Read all of the results here. Below are more stories and observations from bisexual men who bristled at the previous readers who doubted their existence:

When I was about 13 or 14, I realized I was attracted to men.  I had many deep crushes on girls as children, and no real attraction to men until I hit puberty.  I liked fantasizing about both, and I had two significant relationships in that period of bisexuality, one with a boy and another with a girl.  They were both pretty good.  Throughout this time, it was drilled into me by coming out stories and adults both gay and straight that bisexuality was a stopping point on the way to being gay.  I still had crushes on girls, but my awkwardness and general unattractiveness mostly kept them from becoming relationships.  I also had crushes on (mostly straight) boys.

At 16, as one of the few juniors at a debate camp full of seniors, there was a group of friends I really wanted to be part of – a clique led by a smart, good-looking girl with a gaggle of male followers.  At first she thought I was hitting on her; that’s when I made my move and came out as gay.  If I’m looking back and being totally honest, I think my shift from bisexual to gay at 16 was actually based on my attraction to a woman.  This is a pattern that would hold for the next four years or so: I would develop close friendships with females I was actually attracted to while having sexual and romantic relationships exclusively with men.  There was one exception: one of my female idols and I got so drunk and a hotel room that we attempted to have sex, but booze and marijuana and sexual confusion are not kind to the erection of any man.

At 20, I met the woman I would eventually marry.  She is amazing, beautiful, smart, and we are infinitely compatible.  During the early phase of our relationship, I spent a lot of time thinking about what it meant that I now had the most significant relationship of my life so far with a woman.  Mostly it was just awkward.  Coming out as gay to everyone you know was hard, and occasionally painful.  Coming out to everyone you know again as bi just confuses them.  I still am attracted to men, but I absolutely love my wife.

What I’ve concluded from all of this is that a lot of people’s confusion is based in two assumptions about bisexuality: for men it’s a phase before gay and for women it’s a phase before straight.  I think this is often true, but man is it irritating to have all of those cases used against your identity.

Or as another reader puts it:

In most of these cases, a bisexual woman is perceived as a straight woman faking it to be edgy – a poser trying to attract men with a hot fantasy – and a bisexual man is perceived as a gay man in denial. In both these instances, society seems to be saying that if you’re going to deviate from the sexual norm, the only valid choice is the cock.

Another:

In my early teen years, I periodically developed powerful crushes on other boys in my classes. I’d worry that I was gay (I’m the son of a devoutly Catholic mother and was devout at that age as well), but then I’d think “but I also have a crush on all these girls.” In fact, I’d had crushes on girls from an early age. Since I’d never heard of bisexuality and figured a person was either one or the other, I figured “well, if I like girls, I must be straight, regardless of what I feel for these other boys.” Even then, when one of those boys dropped me in favor of “cooler” friends, I moped for a whole school year.

The lightning bolt didn’t really hit until a few months later when I was out hiking with my best friend and one of our old high-school buddies.

My friend had joined the rowing team at his college and had become extraordinarily fit in just a couple of months. We were hiking back to the car and my two friends challenged each other to a race. As they ran off, I caught myself admiring my friend’s ass. And not just in a “hey, he looks good” kind of way. The things I wanted to do with that ass would have shocked him. I was so surprised that I had to sit down. Soon after, I told my other best friend from high school (an ex-girlfriend) that “I think I might be bisexual.”

Her response? “Duh.”

She told me that the way I’d been around certain men had aroused her suspicions years previously. She rattled off a list of names and at each one I felt a flutter. A litany of handsome, gorgeous, or just cute young men, any one of whom I’d have eagerly …

This was all about 25 years ago. In the intervening years, I’ve dated more women than men and I have no trouble admitting that I’m more often attracted to women. My taste in men frequently surprises me; I don’t have a single type; I’m not usually attracted to tremendously masculine men or to particularly effeminate men (for that matter, my taste in women is similarly androgynous). And in the last few years my social circumstances have moved me away from “traditional” gay culture. However, the two real passions I’ve had in my life were for a simply beautiful man and a gorgeous woman. And in neither case was it because I was “turned on by ‘dirty'”, as your reader put it. I was madly in love with both of them and was crushed when those relationships ended.

So, do we exist? Yes. Are there more of us than anyone else? Well, it’s true that we have that choice and in the prevailing social climate in this country, is it any surprise that most men who are occasionally attracted to other men chose to simply “be straight”? Some of us don’t, however, and telling us that we don’t exist is, honestly, deeply insulting.

Another:

I’m just catching up on this thread and feel the need to weigh in, particularly to your reader’s comment, “What I haven’t ever encountered was a guy claiming to be bi, but apparently exclusively interested in men.” I could be the guy your reader is looking for. I openly self-identify as a gay man primarily for the sake of simplicity, and I have only had long-term relationships with other men. My friends and family all know. However, I have had sex with women, I enjoy it, and I actively seek it out on occasion. I had several legitimate “crushes” on women in my high school/college days, though nothing became of them. My romantic interest in women largely ended when I started dating guys in college (I’m 28 now). At the same time, I don’t think many women would enter a relationship with a guy who was openly bisexual, for whatever reason – fear of being his showpiece to appear straight or to satisfy his parents, or she may find it unmasculine, etc.

Starting in college, however, I’ve had a string of female partner’s I’ve hooked up with regularly, as well as a few one-off hookups. I guess that makes me the reverse of the stereotypical bisexual guy, who will have relationships with a woman and only dabble in sex with other men.

As I said before, I quite openly self-identify as gay because it’s easy, and it’s mostly true – I am more inclined toward sex with men, and I think I’m probably more compatible with men for relationships. I could probably give up sex with women if I had to. However, if I’m with gay friends and the topic of sex with women arises, I don’t mind sharing my experience. The usual response is, “Wait, you’re bi?” as if a guy who can swing both ways is a mythical creature. I just reply, “Yeah, sort of.” Then come the follow-up questions, and all I can really say is that I occasionally like sex with women. Apparently bisexuality confuses people, and initially telling someone that I’m gay just allows me to skip having to explain myself.

Another:

I am the reader who posted that I “don’t believe” in bisexuals.  Of course I posted that to be inflammatory (like almost everything else I do).  However, the responses don’t take into consideration my experiences.  I was married to a woman for over ten years and I have two children.  I had an incredibly fulfilling sex life.  I had been flipping back and forth between men and women my whole life and I’ve had four long-term relationships; two men and two women.  I loved my wife more than words can express and I still do.

My point only was that over time EVERYONE will find that they are better off with one or the other, whether or not they are sexually attracted, emotionally attracted, etc. to varying degrees.  Unfortunately for my wife and children I didn’t realize this until it was too late to avoid causing a great deal of pain.  So yes, I don’t deny that some of your male readers might be capable of relationships with both genders and that they might be fulfilling in both directions but I truly believe that for each person there will be one that will make them whole in the way the other cannot.  I don’t think many of your readers who responded to me have reached this point in their lives yet.  I was almost 40 when I figured it out.  I wish them luck.  It’s not an easy road.

Julia Ioffe doubts the Russians are interested in providing Snowden with a quick exit now that he’s stuck in Moscow:

I’m going to make a prediction here: Snowden isn’t going to Ecuador. He’s staying in Russia. Why? Because that’s what “free men” with troves of valuable data—just look at how hard the White House is fighting to get him back—and even more valuable revenge potential do when they take a strange detour to South America through Moscow and, mysteriously, get stuck. …

Putin said that Russian security services—which, again, are swarming the airport—”have not and are not working” with Snowden. Feels like there’s a missing word there, like, oh, I don’t know, “yet.” I’m going to call bullshit on that one, but if you don’t believe me, listen to Ellen Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow Bureau Chief for the Times. “If #Snowden’s been at Sheremetyevo all this time but FSB did not approach, it’s like a hungry man looking at a hamburger and not touching it,” she tweeted. (A Russian security source told a Reuters reporter that “he is a tasty morsel for any, any, secret service, also for ours.”)

I promise you, dear reader, that that hamburger—or tasty morsel—will get eaten, if it hasn’t been devoured already.

Michael Hirsh suspects Putin is having a field day:

Whatever Putin may be saying now about not wanting to harm ”the business-like character of our relations with the U.S.,” it is evident that Russia’s foreign policy is largely shaped by its leader’s desire to meddle with America and its designs around the world. That is true whether the issue is Syria (with Putin backing Bashar al-Assad against the U.S.-aided rebels); Iran (where Moscow opposes too-stringent sanctions and is building a reactor); or missile defense (where Putin pressured President Obama to retreat from a missile-defense system, angering the Poles and the Czech Republic). Above all, Putin was incensed by the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 law named after a murdered Russian lawyer under which the U.S. government can penalize Russian human-rights abuses. And he has built his entire rise to power on the idea of resurrecting the prestige and geopolitical impact of his former employer–the USSR — if not exactly its communist system.

Fred Weir, on the other hand, interviews a Russian analyst who thinks Putin more likely views Snowden as a risk:

[Professor Andrei] Konovalov suggests there could be a reason closer to home for Russian authorities to hold Snowden at arms length. It’s one thing for the Kremlin’s English-language satellite news network Russia Today, known as RT, to lionize information leakers such as Assange and Snowden, and quite another for domestic Russian audiences to see Putin openly embracing an idealist bent on ripping the lid off government secrets.

Jonathan Chait believes that Congress forced Obama’s hand on climate:

There is a very fortunate irony about President Obama’s second term. He has to deal with a Congress barely capable of keeping the government’s lights on, let alone crafting rational laws, and totally unable to handle any number of policy crises. Yet, on the single most urgent issue facing the country (and the world), climate change, Obama doesn’t need Congress at all. …

It is true that, in the long run, Congress will have to act. Obama can meet environmentalists’ near-term goal of reducing carbon emissions 17 percent by 2020 on his own. In the decades afterward, deeper cuts will be needed — humans have simply pumped too much carbon into the atmosphere to sustain any continuation of the old practices. Perhaps a functional Congress will one day emerge. In the meantime, the only way to understand the issue is that Congress, for all intents and purposes, does not exist.

Yglesias sees “one right response to Obama’s climate plan” for Republicans:

The right solution here is still what it was when Obama was first elected. Republicans ought to suck it up and recognize that a real legislative framework for tackling climate change is better than an ad hoc, executive-branch response. All the interests, regions, and industries harmed by a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system are going to be harmed even more by an all-regulation effort—you get the costs of reduced fossil-fuel use without the revenue that can mitigate those costs. The upside to sticking with the Clean Air Act framework is that it gives Republicans an issue: People will feel pain if electricity becomes more expensive, and they can point the finger at Obama and the Democrats. But while this sort of partisan war may have made some sense in the president’s first term, by now it’s surely time to give up the ghost.

Brad Plumer is more optimistic about the regulatory approach:

A better approach,  [economists will] typically say, would be for Congress to set a price on carbon that required polluters to pay for the damage caused by their emissions. People would then decide how best to adjust to the new price of fossil fuels on their own. That would be cheaper and more efficient. Again, that’s the conventional wisdom. But in an interesting recent paper (pdf) for Resources for the Future, Nathan Richardson and Arthur G. Fraas look at this comparison in much greater detail. Their conclusion? It actually depends how each is designed. EPA regulations might even be more effective than a carbon tax in a few cases.

McArdle, meanwhile, predicts that the costs of climate regulation will prevent any action, regulatory or legislative, without major changes in the energy landscape:

[T]his will not be painless for anyone.  Unless we get really cheap solar, it will be painful for everyone–so painful, I submit, that it probably isn’t going to happen.  Let’s return to Obama’s plan.  Final standards will be released in 2015 and phased in slowly.  (You will observe that the president has cleverly timed things so that he is out of office when the cuts begin to bite).  If they are toothy enough to really hurt–produce a measurable increase in electric bills that really changes behavior, other than causing manufacturers to shift production to Chinese facilities where energy-efficiency is lower, but so are energy prices–then I predict that President Obama’s successor will roll the rules back even more swiftly than they were unrolled.

If said successor does not, but digs in and stands on environmental principle, then Congress will step in and amend the law to remove EPA oversight over carbon emissions.  This will happen whether Democrats or Republicans control the House, for the same reason that European parliaments keep weaseling out of strengthening the EU carbon trading regime.

Yglesias explains what today’s DOMA ruling means for the budget:

This is obviously not the main issue driving anyone’s thinking about marriage equality, but throwing out the Defense of Marriage Act as the Supreme Court did today should have some meaningful implications for the federal budget. The research that exists on this is a little sketchy and uncertain, but the main conclusion is that it will likely have a small positive impact on deficits. The ur-text here is a 2004 Congressional Budget Office analysis that was done at the behest of Ohio Republican Steve Chabot, who I think was hoping for the opposite conclusion.

Neil Irwin goes into more detail:

On the spending side, one of the biggest impacts is on Social Security and other federal programs. As the 2004 CBO report notes, “As a general rule, married people fare better under Social Security than single people do, and married couples with one earner fare better than two-earner couples do.” At the simplest level, more married couples means a more generous Social Security system, due to survivor benefits that allow a widow or widower to continue receiving benefits after their spouse dies. The CBO reckoned those numbers would be relatively modest, however, because gay couples are more likely to both be wage earners than straight couples, and because they are the same gender, it is less likely that one will dramatically outlive the other. The CBO estimated the increased federal spending due to same-sex marriage at about $200 million a year from 2010 to 2014, a pittance in the context of the federal budget.

State-level analyses have fit the same pattern. As Suzy Khimm notes here, studies in Maine and Rhode Island both pointed to small but measurable improvements to those states’ fiscal pictures from the legalization of gay marriage.